Buckling up for MS – The story so far (Part 1)

Every six months thousands and thousands apply for MS in the US from India. Well this is their story.

Its not always that the American dream drives people to MS in US, it may be peer pressure, it may be money, it may be thirst for knowledge, it may be convenience, a matter of heart or redemption; simply anything. You may find a wide ranging reasons, but whatever the reason may be the place to look for abroad is undoubtedly the United States.

The process starts with uncertainty and doubt which lasts throughout. It starts with the preparation of GRE. You come across thousands of words never seen, never heard or never used before nor will ever. It doesn’t even matter how good your English is was is or will be! The uncertainty of which words will be flashed in the exam haunts always. Unless you are a lexicographer no one is sparred from this uncertainty. After dealing with a giant headache a smaller headache pops up in the form of TOEFL, sometimes the more irritating of the two.

Two exams and we are just getting warmed up, now starts the horrendous task of actual application. Each task in this process is a mammoth and no lesser a trouble than the GRE itself.
SOP(Statement of Purpose) : When you take a look at one of these you feel that the person who is reflected could do nothing wrong ever. You could actually visualize an ideal person with enormous aspirations tremendous ideas and ……well almost a saintly person. You feel how can I even get close to being such a person. But eventually you too find out those streaks of sainthood in you and you are done with your SOP : fabricated and perfect!

LOR(Letters of Recommendation): Find three people who will write in a good word for you on your academic standing….well for some even this is a difficult task. Adjectives like ‘the best’ , ‘most promising’, ‘one of the top’ will be abundantly seen in these. Seldom ever are you conferred these prestigious adjectives!

Transcripts: The feeling of helplessness and hopelessness is at its epitome here. You may feel getting an admit at times is easier than getting transcripts in time. But yes it’s a learning experience , you get a real essence of Indian Babudom: the lethargy, the indifference and the apathy.

Financial Documents: All things come at a price and MS is all about the price. All things you do, will do or ever think of is ‘can I afford it?’. The decision of pursuing MS starts and ends here. Gather the finance, get the documents ready and you are set to send your applicaton packets.

What follows is a really long wait. Its is like sowing seeds and waiting for the plant to grow. It literally takes that long. You develop an involuntary muscle which pulls you to open your inbox atleast twice a day to check for replies, admits , rejects. In the meantime you try to lessen your anxiety by getiing a profile analysis, asking seniors, and surveying but in the end none of these really answer your questions. Finally the day of reconing comes in the form of an admit letter and sooner but most probably later the all important I-20 form.

End of story…..? Well no, it has just become interesting. Now you have to take a VISA. A dozen of forms and documents, a long wait at the crowded American counsulate and a highly hyped but a turn down interview. Thats it! Now you are authorized to fly but just not yet. Invariably all universities in the US have an Indian student organization or groups which I must say help enormously in making your transition from one part of the world to the other pretty comfortable. (Hails to all these organizations!!! )You get in touch with these groups or organizations, place your residual queries of how’s , when’s etc before leaving. An important factor is also shopping. It may be fun shopping things you feel will be costlier or unaffordable but more often than not it is funnier when you find out a lot of your shopping was really unnecessary. You might have fun shopping but the joy is short-lived.You may have everything you need but you still need to pack them. The optimization problem that you face of packing ALL your world into 2 or 3 bags with size and weight constraints is one problem even optimization specialists will have to rack their brains on.However with the bags packed, VISA in hand and a few awry emotions you set yourself to enter a new place! The flight takes off and after a long, gruelling and nauseating(depending on the airline company) journey you set foot in a foreign land

Hence forth things are different.This point is like a threshold; analogous to a point described in physics where classical mechanics ends and quantum mechanics begins. Well simply putting it an intermission in the story…..

Nothing in this world worth having comes easy - Dr Kelso (Scrubs)

The more I think about this line by a character called Dr Kelso from a TV series scrubs, the more I believe it. After each successful task I accomplish I appreciate the beauty of this line. Or the more I believe in it, the more it feels real to me.

Consider anything of great value to you, something which you would absolutely love to possess. What value would it have if you can get it easily. You can get even grocery which is your bare necessity easily without effort. A thing of value should be something you don’t get easily, shouldn’t it? It’s rarity or inaccessibility is what makes it so valuable. The feeling of owning this rare or inaccessible thing of value is what makes the ownership so special. Well I just stated the converse of the title to be true so the statement itself should be true….!!

But let me discuss something which is missing from the above argument: the importance of efforts or hard work. What makes the fruit of ownership sweeter is hard work. The pleasure of owning comes from the sense that you have earned it from your efforts regardless of how much of your efforts actually contributed to the achievement. Sometimes you get the fruit of all the effort you put in and sometimes the fruit you get is not exactly a direct result of your efforts, sometimes you get a fruit from just nothing. However you earn the fruit, you can relish it’s sweetness only when you have worked hard enough to earn it.

Although all the wise men say the same things, fools like me and many others like to learn things the hard way. So no matter which sentence sounds appropriate; ‘karm kar phal ki chinta mat kar’, ‘Hard work pays’, ‘its not the destination but the journey that matters’ or anything else, the gist is ‘nothing in this world worth having comes easy’ :)

TOLERANCE : Need of the hour

All the world needs today is tolerance. Specially now more than it ever did.

Why , I will explain in a minute.

In recent years or decades, distance between people has virtually reduced because of better means of communication, which has led to increase in inter-dependance of people. People are now-a-days compelled to look at a broader perspective. Although the concept of loyalty and patriotism towards the nation still prevails people have been forced to have a more global perspective. As a lack of it can adversely affect business or social harmony,

The phenomenon has many names. You may call it globalization or ‘World is Shrinking ‘ or ‘World is a global village’. The fact is in today’s world the gamut of situations that people experience, the variety of people that we meet, the extent of things we hear or see is far more greater today than what it used be. All of it we owe to the globalization phenomenon.Here I have used globalization as a much general term.

Coming back to need of tolerance. Since people of different groups, ethnic backgrounds, religion interact more with each other , their dependencies on each other also increase. For harmony to prevail what is required is an increase in the level of tolerance by every individual. Consider an example of India as a country. For the muslims and the hindus and the Christians, the Sikhs etc to live together we need some amount of religious tolerance. For the people with a more conservative attitude(some may say fundamental ideology) and for people with a more modern attitude , some amount of ideological tolerance is required. For the people of different states a more cultural tolerance is required. In short for everyone to live in harmony tolerance is a must.

Until now people have somehow managed to muster enough tolerance to live as one nation. Although a lack of it is always displayed in the form of racism, casteism, etc.

However now globalization calls for higher amount of tolerance to tackle today’s well known enemy ‘terrorism’ may be it of any form.

People today are required to tolerate people with different colour, religion, caste, nationality, even sexual orientation. People should not take tolerance as encroachment or acceptance of new values but simply take tolerance as acknowledgement of the fact that other values exist.

A greater amount of tolerance will bring a lot of peace and harmony into this world. I may sound like a staunch Gandhian but his principle of tolerance still stands…..

Why the concept of a God- A discussion

In this blog I want to share my ideas on why almost every religion in the world believes in the concept of God and Devil. I put forward simply my perception of the topic.

Man(well to be less gender biased Human being) is a social animal. The implications are ; humans always seek the approval of a fellow being. Humans adapt themselves to the conformity of group of people. The aggregation of groups conforming to a basic principle may be called a religion. For example when a child is born, it seeks the conformity of its parents. All the impressions made in his mind(referred as sanskaras in hindu religion) regarding his surrounding world are a result of confirming to the impressions of its parents. As the child grows up it learns to think differently than his parents. This is again dependence on conformity of relatives, friends, teachers or iconic personalities. As humans grow they may seek conformity from one or many sources.

The basis on which humans decide whom to confirm is on their well-being. If a person or a group appeal to the ‘well-being’ concept of a particular person, then that person chooses that person or group a point of conformity. However in time humans realize no particular person or group appeals fully to their ‘well-being’.( This is bound to happen because all people learn to think differently. Even people living in same environment think differently as each person perceives the world from his or her point of view.)

When all the benchmarks(people or group for conformity) which a person sets fail to pass all his tests of appealing to his ‘well-being’; the person seeks an ideal benchmark. The concept of ‘ideal’ is again picked up from sources to which the person confirms to the most. And here comes the concept of God- the all powerful, all knowing, the omnipresent, and the all merciful.

Most human beings are at comfort thinking that a God is there to look after them, love them, forgive them, teach them, and principle them. The concept of God is always good to bank on for a person when he is troubled. When human beings come across a state of not ‘well being’ they find reason to it that they are in this state since they failed to comply to His Will. When they don’t find any reason they submit to His knowledge and find relief believing that God is watching, he knows better.

Whether this God really exists is not a question to be answered!!!!!